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357 community volunteers do virtually all the non-clinical tasks at LVIM.
191 volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses, physicians' assistants, medical
assistants and technicians provide patient care. There are only six paid
employees of the clinic.
We operate by the support of the community, grants, and United Way.
Our patients must live or work in Lakeland, have no form of healthcare
insurance and earn no more than 150% of the federal poverty guidelines, (about $28,000 for a family of four).
LVIM provides primary medical care, like a doctor's office.
LVIM provides free prescription medications from it's own pharmacy, and most patients leave with two or more prescriptions.
LVIM provides free X-rays and lab tests by a grant from
The Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida Inc..
In 2002 to 2003, our third year of operation, we had 23,000 patient visits.
Our cost are extremely low because of our volunteer workers.

Lakeland Volunteers In Medicine began as a dream of various community
leaders and organizations in 1999. Led primarily by Watson Clinic physicians and the Watson Clinic Foundation, Lakeland came together to find ways to meet the healthcare challenges that resulted in the dream's becoming a reality in the old John Cox Grammar School on Lakeland Hills Boulevard. LVIM is now an
independent non profit organization with its own Board of Directors.

How many working uninsured persons are there in Lakeland? According to the Kaiser Commission, 19% of all Floridians have no form of health insurance, more in Polk County because of the elevated incidence of poverty. In greater Lakeland (the service area of Lakeland Electric), there are 200,000 persons, and we
estimate 50,000 of them work but have no health insurance. They cannot afford private insurance, they do not qualify for Medicaid and their healthcare is
infrequent and costly to themselves and the community. The working uninsured take time off work when they are sick, they lose work days, they go without
medications,  they put off treatment...and when it gets bad, they use the
hospital's Emergency Department--care the hospital must write off.